My Friends

Wii U trials and tribulations

First impressions and stories of the Wii U

So I picked up a Deluxe (Black) Wii U last night. I don't blog much but I thought I'd share what I had to go through and some of the details of the setup process.

So having not snagged a preorder I decided I could wait in line for a midnight release at Walmart. (Damn you Amazon). I went the day before to make sure I scoped out where the line was going to be. Wouldn't want to be standing in the wrong place. Had to get milk for my 2 year old at 7 PM and nobody waiting in line. It seemed promising. So I would the evenening up with my Son and put him to bed. That done I headed off to Walmart. It's only 2 minutes from. Y house conveniently. Having learned lessons from my youth I bought a camping chair with me and my IPad and Bluetooth headphones. Got there at 9 PM and was the first in line. I was expecting more people but it seems like a lot of people didn't even know that it was being released. My loneliness was short lived as more people showed up. I must say I was relieved as a lone guy sitting in the middle of the aisle at Walmart in a chair kind of made me feel out of place. The man right behind me had a reserved white one at GameStop but wanted to get a black one instead. Initially we were told that there were only 6 available. Ok I'm first in line, no big deal. As the line grew to 6 people or so the clerk came out and said now they only had 4 and they were all white. A lot of people were upset. Ithe man behind me decided to go home since he at least had a white one already. I almost got up to leave. But I decided to stay. If anything I could get the white one and wait a week till they got more shipments and get a black one. In the meantime I could try and flip it on Craigslist. Didn't want to have waited for nothing. Worst case I could return it in 2 weeks. Around 11 a guy came out and said they had 15. 5 minutes later he came back and said 4. This continued and the customers behind me started getting quite irate. How could they have told us more before and now say less. Was some kind of funny business going on? I knew that there was probrably a lot of confusion and well, if you work at Walmart it's not saying a lot. 15 minutes till midnight there were maybe 15 people in line. Optimists I suppose. I was planning on letting them have an earful for not having a single deluxe system for purchase despite it prominently featured on the in store display. The clerk came out again and announced that now there were 4 black and 4 white systems. He also bought out a stack of 7 or so games for us to peruse in line. Quite a bit more than I was expecting. I'll have to say this is one of the stronger launch lineups I've ever seen. In any case here is what I came home with.

3 hours didn't seem to bad with a chair and an iPad, although I spent most of my time in line talking with the other quemates. I'm glad I waited and didn't go home, I do feel bad for the guy who waited for an hour then left as he would have got his black console for his kids.

Got home and unpacked everything. Was nice to see an included HDMI cable. It looks very study and durable and not cheap. I put the gamepad on the charger and went to sleep. (well I watched the latest episode of Game Sack first http://www.youtube.com/user/MrGameSack )

So in the morning I decided to get to the setup. The power brick is fairly hefty. One cable for AV was very easy. Sensor bar didn't want to stick to my tv but finally got it on good. The sync button on the front of the console made for easy syncing with the gamepad. Additionally you need to input a symbol code consisting of playing card suits from the tv screen onto the game pad. The setup consisted of input everything on the touch screen while the tv screen showed additional details. Was fairly streamlined and easy. Setting up the control pad for tv control was fairly easy. You input you tv manufacturer and you attempt to change volume and inputs until the right code is obtained. Same for you cable box. You can pick up the tablet and push the TV button any time to bting up vlume and TV power controls, input selection, and change channels and bring up guide on you cable box. Console does not have to be on. I imagine when the Tv full functionality comes out it will have more options. Works in game as well for volume control. Using an IR sensor in the controller for this.

Making a Mii for you user account consisted on taking a picture with the gamepad camera and the Mii maker. Pretty much identical to the 3DS process. The first hiccup I encountered was with linking a Nintendo online account to your profile. Well this would come back to bite me later. This is a new ID for use with the Wii U that is your online identity and player profile. Up to 8 users per console. This is not your club Nintendo Account or your Wii store account. I skipped this as I tried to use my club Nintendo account and it didn't work.

Next step in the setup was setting up the Internet access. The setup pulled up the hotspots and I chose mine and then simply needed to input my WEP code. (I have a dual band router with one band for general use and one band for wireless N traffic only, the wireless N only uses WPA but my othe band I have to keep WEP for a few devices that don't support WPA like my DS) I'm thinking that the Wii U does not support wireless N as it didn't pick up my second hotspot. Took me about a half hour to find my password for my router. Once entered it worked flawlessly. I tried the one button setup with me router but it only works with WPA apparently.

Pso now the setup went into an system update, I think I could have skipped it but being as I read that Wii games require it to work I ler it go. This took about an hour and a half. During this time I booted up my Wii and downloaded the transfer app to the Wii. Once the update was over there was a glitch where it didn't update the gamepad. Upon restarting my Wii U it updated after. Now to download the transfer app to my wii U. Not obviously you need to go to the Wii channel and then download the transfer app to there. Once I figured that out with a trip to Nintendo support I went to download the app. But it would let me acces the online store. What happens is if you don't register a Nintendo online account you can't access any online feature at all. So I had Go back to the beginning and research the what a Nintendo online account was and sign up for one. Was fairly simple but an email verification was required. Luckily my user name was not taken being an early adopter. You link that account to you Wii U login and set a password. Password is optional but effectively locks out anyone from using your Wii U after setting up parental controls. So I downloaded the transfer app to my Wii U and and started the transfer. Essential you need an SD card and both systems connected to Internet. Sd card gets formatted for transfer on Wii U, goes to Wii to copy data, basically all your Wii saves and channels and downloaded games and Miis. Then card gets transferred back to Wii U and loads your EShop account and data. After transfer your Wii is effectively wiped and your EShop account is gone. The transfer is fully animated like the 3DS system transfer but better. Pickmin carry all you save files through a series of corridors and tunnels in 3D and load your files into a rocket ship. When all files are transferred you ship on the Wii blasts off and heads for the star in the sky labeled Wii U. Upon copying to Wii U the rocket shot approaches and lands and the Pickmin march your save files through a complex representing your Wii U and eventually place your files on the CPU presumably. During this process all your files are transferred and any large downloaded games like Contra Rebirth for example are automatically redownloaded to your Wii U Wii channel. It's a pretty entertaining to watch and worked flawlessly. You don't have to download any of your previous purchases at all. It takes care of it for you. This took close to 40 minutes though.

I played some Nintendo land, (another 10 minute update.) and decided to add my Sons account. He is only 2 and can't read so I just needed to have Mii to log him in. Well with new users you can not link your Nintendo online ID to another user. So I had to sign him up for an account just for him. Well I didn't have to but without it he would be locked out of watching Netflix because of the no online access restriction. To register anyone younger than 18 you have sign up their own Nintendo I'd. Then a new password. Then you have to use your email address of the adult (me) and provide a credit card for a 50 cent age verification. Once this is done my two year old had an account he could log into on the touch screen and watch Netflix. Parental controls are separate from user accounts and can be set up on a per user basis. So I set them up so my son could not change any settings, use the Internet, use Miiverse or receive messages, and not play any games rated higher than 10 and over or use the EShop. But he could still use the Netflix. Was very complicated to figure out but it worked. I was able to disable the log on password for him since he can't read. He just has to touch his Mii icon. And he can't access my side because of the password protection where I have zero parental controls.

Seems silly to have to pay 50 cents for having a two year old have access to online capabilitys. The parental controls effectively limit him from changing anynsettinings on my or his account and when I log it it his Mii with an update of what applications he was using recently. Impressive.

So now basically 4 hours later I can actually put the setup aside and play games. First off the Netflix is great. The tablet mirrors the screen and can be used to search and navigate menus. Very slick interface. There is a cool choice when booting up for Netflix for kids. The menus are replaced with characters from the show and my son can just click on the character of his favorite show and start watching. Also the same with the kids movies.

The neat thing is that with a touch of a button you can transfer the video to the controller screen. Allows watching netflix on controller without the tv. Will definetly free up my TV this way. One button push and it seamlessly transfer the video back to the screen with zero interruptions or delay. And when watching on the tv the small,screen can be used to view details about the program and choose other episodes.

The Internet works well. The tablet is effectively a touchscreen controller like an iPad. You can view the Internet only on the tablet or transfer it to view on the big screen. Good for private browsing if you don't want to broadcast to the whole living room what you are watching. Or if you want to unveil a sexy surprise on the your tv at a moments notice :).

So far I have never had a console take 4 to 5 hours to finish setting everything up and play. It literally took half a day. If you know what you are doing and have all your info ahead of time maybe you could swing it in 2 hours. But the screen integration is really amazing. Nintendoland is way better than I expected and I haven't even scratched the surface. Super Mario looks crisp and sharp in HD. Even on the gamepad. Think Rayman origins level for some areas but with. Mario style. Great graphical effects in the levels. I'm only on the second world but I am liking it. There is enough new stuff to forgive the fact that it's still very derivative of Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros Wii. Enough new stuff and better graphics to overlook that though. It's a good Mario game. The visuals are really sharp and Definetly a huge jump over the Wii. I expect to set up my Mii verses stuff tommorow and check out Zombie U. I probrably won't blog about it but instead just comment on any blog that the subject comes up. Sorry so long but I had a lot to say and I hope some of you found it informative.